We clarify the macroscopic symmetry and microscopic model-parameter conditions for emergence of spin-split electronic band structure in collinear antiferromagnets without atomic spin–orbit coupling...

Spin current–a flow of electron spins without a charge current–is an ideal information carrier free from Joule heating for electronic devices. The celebrated spin Hall effect, which arises from the relativistic spin-orbit coupling, enables us to generate and detect spin currents in inorganic materials and semiconductors, taking advantage of their constituent heavy atoms. In contrast, organic materials consisting of molecules with light elements have been believed to be unsuited for spin current generation. Here we show that a class of organic antiferromagnets with checker-plate type molecular arrangements can serve as a spin current generator by applying a thermal gradient or an electric field, even with vanishing spin-orbit coupling. Our findings provide another route to create a spin current distinct from the conventional spin Hall effect and open a new field of spintronics based on organic magnets having advantages of small spin scattering and long lifetime.

We propose an efficient microscopic design procedure of electronic band structures having intrinsic spin and momentum dependences in spin-orbit-coupling free antiferromagnets. Our bottom-up design approach to creating desired spin-split and reshaped electronic band structures could result in further findings of practical spin-orbit-coupling free materials exhibiting a giant spin-dependent and/or nonreciprocal transport, magnetoelectric and elastic responses, and so on, as a consequence of such band structures. We establish a systematic guideline to construct symmetric/antisymmetric spin-split and antisymmetrically deformed spin-independent band structures in spin-orbit-coupling free systems by using two polar multipole degrees of freedom, i.e., electric and magnetic toroidal multipoles. The two polar multipoles constitute a complete set and describe arbitrary degrees of freedom in the hopping Hamiltonian, whose onsite and offsite degrees of freedom in a cluster are described as the so-called cluster and bond multipoles, respectively, and another degree of freedom connecting between clusters is expressed as momentum multipoles. By using these multipole descriptions, we elucidate simple microscopic conditions to realize intrinsic band deformations in magnetically ordered states: The symmetric spin splitting is realized in collinear magnets when cluster and bond multipoles contain the same symmetry of multipoles. The antisymmetric spin splitting occurs in noncollinear antiferromagnets when a bond-type magnetic toroidal multipole is present. Furthermore, the antisymmetric band deformation with spin degeneracy is realized in noncoplanar antiferromagnets. We exemplify three lattice systems formed by a triangle unit, triangular, kagome, and breathing kagome structures, to demonstrate the band deformations under the magnetic ordering. On the basis of the proposed procedure, we list up various candidate materials showing intrinsic band deformations in accordance with MAGNDATA, magnetic structures database.

Magnetic skyrmions have attracted considerable attention recently for their huge potential in spintronic applications. Generally skyrmions are big compared to the atomic lattice constant, which allows for the Ginzburg-Landau type description in the continuum limit. Such a description successfully captures the main experimental observations on skyrmions in B20 compound without inversion symmetry. Skyrmions can also exist in inversion-symmetric magnets with competing interactions. Here, we derive a general Ginzburg-Landau theory for skyrmions in these magnets valid in the long-wavelength limit. We study the unusual static and dynamical properties of skyrmions based on the derived Ginzburg-Landau theory. We show that an easy axis spin anisotropy is sufficient to stabilize a skyrmion lattice. Interestingly, the skyrmion in inversion-symmetric magnets has a new internal degree of freedom associated with the rotation of helicity, i.e., the “spin” of the skyrmion as a particle, in addition to the usual translational motion of skyrmions (orbital motion). The orbital and spin degree of freedoms of an individual skyrmion can couple to each other, and give rise to unusual behavior that is absent for the skyrmions stabilized by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. The derived Ginzburg-Landau theory provides a convenient and general framework to discuss skyrmion physics and will facilitate the search for skyrmions in inversion-symmetric magnets.

Four types of atomic-scale multipoles (electric, magnetic, magnetic toroidal, and electric toroidal multipoles) give a complete set to describe arbitrary degrees of freedom for coupled charge, spin, and orbital of electrons. We here present a systematic classification of these multipole degrees of freedom towards the application in condensed matter physics. Starting from the multipole description under the rotation group in real space, we generalize the concept of multipoles in momentum space with the spin degree of freedom. We show how multipoles affect the electronic band structure and linear responses, such as the magnetoelectric effect, magnetocurrent (magnetogyrotropic) effect, spin conductivity, piezoelectric effect, and so on. Moreover, we exhibit a complete table to represent the active multipoles under 32 crystallographic point groups. Our comprehensive and systematic analyses will give a foundation to identify enigmatic electronic order parameters and a guide to evaluate peculiar cross-correlated phenomena in condensed matter physics from the microscopic point of view.

Magnetic Skyrmions are swirling spin textures with topologically protected noncoplanarity. Recently, Skyrmions with the topological number of unity have been extensively studied in both experiment and theory. We here show that a Skyrmion crystal with an unusually high topological number of two is stabilized in itinerant magnets at a zero magnetic field. The results are obtained for a minimal Kondo lattice model on a triangular lattice by an unrestricted large-scale numerical simulation and variational calculations. We find that the topological number can be switched by a magnetic field as $2\leftrightarrow 1\leftrightarrow 0$. The Skyrmion crystals are formed by the superpositions of three spin density waves induced by the Fermi surface effect, and hence, the size of Skyrmions can be controlled by the band structure and electron filling. We also discuss the charge and spin textures of itinerant electrons in the Skyrmion crystals which are directly obtained in our numerical simulations.